Polish PM Tusk resigns to lead European Council

WARSAW, Poland, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk resigned Thursday to prepare for his new position as president of the European Council.

"I've handed over my papers," he told reporters.

He will report in December to Brussels, Belgium, where he will lead the European Council, an agency of the European Union comprised of heads of state of the member nations. While it has no legislative authority, the council serves as an influential director of EU priorities and actions.

Tusk is the only Polish prime minister to be re-elected since the country's constitution, which demands all of Tusk's cabinet resign as well, was rewritten after the collapse of communism in 1989.

President Bronislaw Komorowski has two weeks to choose a new prime minister, and has already endorsed Ewa Kopacz, currently speaker in the lower house of Parliament. Tusk will also hand over leadership of Poland's governing party, the Civic Platform, to Kopacz.